Re: [Harp-L] Duets, Diatonic-sounding chromatic?

[Larry Cee <lcharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

It's hard to answer because have not used a metronome since my piano and classical guitar lesson days (1973-1978), but I assure you I can fluidly play songs at the tempo you are accustomed to hearing on the radio.  For example, I own a recording of Jobim performing his own tunes and I play right along with the recording to "The Girl From Ipanema" without missing a single note or beat.  I can also play it faster than the recording- tried it out after reading your email.  The tunes are too numerous to mention all, but to give you an idea by naming a few tunes you probably are familiar with which I play in keys that require me to shift harps, I play the following songs right along with the tempos they were properly recorded at :  Close to You and This Guy's in Love With You (Bacharach); Pink Panther theme; Sesame Street theme, Feels So Good (Chuck Mangione), (West Side Story)  "Maria" "Tonight";  "Favorite Things" (Sound of Music); Flor d'Luna (Santana); Clair de Lune
 (DeBussey); Gymnopedie (Satie- I try to play it like Toots does on "Footprints"- right tempo but i leave out some of the notes Toots does!); The Christmas Song (Mel Torme); White Christmas (Berlin)...you get the idea.  
   
  At first I was not practicing scales, then I thought it might help if I did just a few minutes per day-- and it helped a lot.  
   
  I used to play chromatic for a few years and there is a speed that you can get on chrom that you probably cannot achieve on two diatos- but I'm too new at it to say what the real limits are.                

  Try some melodies and with a bit of repetition you will find it to be fluid.  Compared to learning draws/bends/double bends/overblows on a diatonic, and remembering where the specific notes are, it is totally easy-not as easy as playing a chromo, but much easier than playing a single diatonic.  You'll find that it is completely intuitive and easy to find the right note on the second harmonica.  I find sight-reading (standard music notation) really easy this way.
   
  All those Asians who play tremolo harmonica this way can't be wrong.
   
  I think a lot of Americans who play diatonic are hung up on developing technique because of the idol-worship factor when they hear guys like Levy-- and they are not devoting enough to simply learning and playing songs.  Or they are just content to play a few blues riffs.  It reminds me of when I was a teenager playing guitar- a lot of guys wanted to learn Eddie Van Halen's guitar-hammer move and they could make cool sounding noise for ten minutes, but if you asked them to play a single song from start to finish, or try to sing and play at the same time, they were clueless.  
   
  Have fun- let me know your progress.
   
  Larry  

 
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